


Vanquished

by SafeAlwaysReal (Kerinh22)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, everlark, thg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerinh22/pseuds/SafeAlwaysReal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I know that he will rekindle the fire within her..."  </p><p>Written for Prompts in Panem, Day 7, Choose Your Own Adventure.  </p><p>Quote: Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.<br/>Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945)</p><p>Photo (remove spaces): h t t p : // w w w . flickr . com / photos / fomalhaut /8597190780 /</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanquished

**Author's Note:**

> Like all good Everlark-shippers, I despise Coriolanus Snow. But to be fair, he's a smart, fascinating character with a story of his own; a story that is inexorably changed by the love of The Boy With the Bread and The Girl on Fire. This is the end of that story.
> 
> All credit goes to the amazing Suzanne Collins.

The manacles and tracking devices make my movements slow and deliberate, age me beyond my years. What they don’t know is that with the life-sustaining medicines working their way out of my body, I have mere hours left. Whatever trite, conventional means they ultimately use to terminate me, by violence or by blood my life will soon be over. 

As I wait in my quarters, I can finally admit to myself that the focus of my musings for so many months has become nothing less than an obsession. Blinded by her fire, I, for once in my life, lost sight of the true threat. Ah, Alma Coin. Your game was masterfully played, I must admit. My infatuation with Katniss Everdeen, which I had thought so carefully concealed, made me little more than a pawn in the hands of the rebellion. Even now, with the certainty of death upon me, my thoughts are consumed by the Girl on Fire.

How I watched her from afar. Fixed a reaping for her. Even tolerated a revolution. All for her.  
The hours pass, and I wander, haltingly and aimlessly, among the perfection of my roses. For once they fail to bring me any comfort or distraction. I can't help but wonder, does she know the extent to which she has been manipulated by those around her? Does she realize that of all the players in this game, I am the only one who has been unfailingly honest and direct with my intentions?

And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, she stands before me, her small, scarred hand reaching for a budding, white rose. 

“That’s a good one.”

She looks up, startled, and I see nothing but a shell. Oh the irony that in my efforts to make her mine by destroying the boy, it was Coin who found her fatal weakness and exploited it. 

I aimed to consume her soul. Coin has annihilated it.

I feel not compassion, never that, but instead a grim sense of satisfaction in knowing that we are more akin now than ever before. Like me, she has no one. Her sister was the source of her drive, her fire. The boy she had finally grown to love, I returned to her broken and empty, unable to take her sister’s place in her heart. And in the thousands of hours I have spent watching her, I know that her feelings for the few that survived do not come close to what she felt for her Primrose and the former Peeta Mellark. 

In this unexpected, unguarded moment I know that with a few carefully chosen words I am the closest I have ever been to possessing her utterly, even as I recognize how little of her may be left. Yet I am compelled to make her see the truth; the extent of this betrayal. I unravel Coin's deception, but her eyes remain vacant, her face expressionless. Oh my stubborn, broken little girl. Like a tutor with a bright, unruly student, I feel both amusement and thinly veiled frustration at my charge. I demand more. Of all the players in this game, she is the only one capable of understanding me. I know that my window of opportunity is brief, and I make one, final attempt to make her see by admitting to her the weakness that I have carefully guarded for so long.

“But I wasn’t watching Coin. I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching me. I’m afraid we have both been played for fools.”

The shell finally cracks. 

“I don’t believe you.”

My disappointment overwhelms every fiber in my being. She must be made to understand. She is the only one who can. I condescendingly shake my head and make one final attempt to break through.

“Oh my dear Ms. Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.”

And as she turns and leaves with those steely eyes and white rose in hand, the method of my demise becomes clear. An arrow. She will be the one, I am sure of it. 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They drag me up to the City Circle and onto the terrace in front of my home. In an utterly useless gesture, they tie my arms behind a post. Everything seems rehearsed, theatrical even. Clearly, Plutarch has orchestrated every moment of my televised assassination. The crowd has worked itself into a frenzy, just as they do the opening day of the games. Only today I am the spectacle. I can’t help but cough and I feel the metallic redness drip slowly down my chin. I have mere minutes left. If they don’t get on with it, my death will be more anticlimactic than they could possibly imagine.

The shell has returned, now clad in her Mockingjay suit. She takes her stance and carefully nocks an arrow. I notice that she is aiming not at me, but at the blushing rose pinned over my heart. I take a final moment to mourn the perfection that has been and will be destroyed by this girl. She will not miss. I’ve watched her too long and too closely to believe otherwise, and I readily admit that I am grateful at the certainty of a quick death at her hands. 

With the motion of lips that I’ve long since memorized, she takes that slow, steadying breath, and I know the release of the arrow is imminent. It’s both disappointing and humorous, really, that she still hasn’t figured it out. I really had expected more from her. At this moment, I can’t help but look up into her soulless grey eyes, the condescension clear on my face. And as my eyes meet hers, in their stormy depths I see it. A spark.

And she exhales.

It takes a moment to register that I am still whole, and the body on the ground before me is not my own. As she lowers her bow, in her eyes I see burning embers and I know that she finally recognizes the truth and the loveless, soulless kindred spirits that we are. The visceral release is beyond anything I have felt before. As I begin to laugh, I feel the torrent of blood release from the lesions in my mouth as the last of the anticoagulants leave my body. It will be death by blood after all. Spasms rack my frame, but with Herculean effort I raise my head once more. My sacrificial perch gives me an excellent view of the bedlam. As the guards advance, she reaches for a pouch on her shoulder. Although I am struggling for breath, I feel a sudden calm in knowing that she will join me in the red-blackness beyond death. 

And then, as my coughing worsens and the crowd converges on her, I am witness to something so improbable that I don’t know if it’s real. The boy has launched himself toward her, but not in hate. He covers the pouch and she bites his hand fiercely instead. They share whispered words I cannot hear, and as he is pulled away from her by the guards, he rips the pouch completely off her shoulder. She is feral, screaming and flailing, as Coin’s soldiers lift and restrain her. The boy turns away, tears streaming down his face, and burning in his eyes I see something that defies belief. I see love.

I can no longer hold up my head and let it fall to my chest. I am utterly defeated. The depth of this boy’s love has vanquished me and brought down my nation. I cannot breathe, and my lungs burn. Fire, always fire. As the blackness invades, my last thoughts are with her. In an unmeasurable second, I see her life unfold before me. She is neither consumed nor annihilated. She will live. She will love again, and I know that he will rekindle the fire within her that I have grown to love.

Love?

Perhaps, 

all along, 

 

I was wrong... 

 

about love.

**Author's Note:**

> My very first fanfiction! Thank you to the talented Audrina C (weasleyisherking) and fairmellarky for pre-reading and to everyone who sent encouragement my way!


End file.
